A Borderline Personality Disorder Story.

Love in 2016

I know that I’m not alone in the belief that 2016 has been an incredibly tough year. The media has been filled with news stories that have rocked us to the core, and some huge decisions have literally divided both the UK and America.

At this time, it feels like we’re clinging to hope – and it breaks my heart to read comments, often from people I’ve never met and do not know, expressing their loss of hope, and quite often their hatred of other people.

It feels very much like there is no ‘answer’ to all that seems to be going wrong in the world. So many people have forgotten how to have compassion, and many seem to find it hard to focus what compassion they have on anyone beyond their immediate field of vision.

In amongst all of this though, there are good stories. People doing good things for one another, positive movements gaining traction. I’ve seen a lot of pictures and videos of people doing good things, and it is heartbreaking that these acts of kindness are riddled with negativity. I don’t believe that a good deed should be recorded for the sake of personal gain, but to have done something good for someone else and to make a record of it to show to the rest of the world that people are doing good things is important.

It’s important at this time, for all of us to know that despite the way the world seems to be headed, people are still fundamentally good. We are kind, caring, compassionate creatures. Every single one of us, no matter what we have done only want for one thing – and that is to be happy. Happiness is a state of mind that can be achieved through so many means, but when you sit down and think about it, even if only for a minute it’s clear – at least to me, that happiness can be found in the smallest of gestures.

Please, please try to find kind words. We all have bad days, and bad moods and difficulties ahead of us. We all have complicated emotions and feelings but we don’t have to give in to them.

I met someone recently, completely by chance. It was chucking it down with rain, and thankfully the local bus stop has a shelter and so immediately we struck up conversation. The topic was obvious, and from it – in no time at all we were making all kinds of connections.

When it came to part ways, my new friend turned to me and told me that she had been in an awful mood, and had prepared herself to feel the same way for the rest of the day – but after our conversation her mood had changed. Just hearing that was enough to make me smile, I was already in good spirits, despite the awful weather and it reinforced this idea that happiness begets happiness.

I’m pretty sure that the change in frame of mind wasn’t down to ‘me’ fundamentally. I went out of my way to talk to someone, and in doing so made a connection that otherwise would have come and gone and left us.

Yes, there are a lot of difficult decisions and changes ahead of us that we will not be in control of. It’s okay to be afraid of how our world will change, and whether it really will be for the better – right now we know absolutely nothing about what is going to happen, and there is a lot of unrest and upset in the media over the outcome of these things.

Giving love, being kind and having compassion will not only help you as an individual through these times but it will also help to show others that they can do the same. It can be difficult to have compassion for someone else, but it is far better than to judge them and for both people to feel the effects of that negativity.